Ezekiel 8:15 - Homiletics.

Greater abominations.

As Ezekiel is taken from one chamber of idolotry to another, in his visionary visit to the temple, he finds to his horror a continuous aggravation of the abominations. This is similar to the results of a survey of the world's sin.

I. SIN IS FOUND IN VARIOUS DEGREES OF ABOMINATION . The patristic statement that all sin is infinite, because it is an offence against the infinite God, is not found in Scripture, nor is it borne out by observation or experience. The Bible refers to various degrees of guilt; e.g. John 19:11 . Peter's denial of Christ was a sin; but Judas's betrayal was a vastly greater sin. We are conscious of degrees of guilt in our own lives. It looks as though the sink of iniquity must be a bottomless pit. There are even deeper, blacker, more frightful and damnable sins yet to be reached by an abandoned soul that plunges down an unchecked descent of iniquity. No one is so bad that he can say, "I can do nothing worse than I have done."

II. THE VARIOUS DEGREES OR ABOMINATION CANNOT BE MEASURED BY EXTERNAL STANDARDS . They are not to be determined by any graduated code of formal morality. What is a weakness in one man may be a crime in another. The father of a starving family who steals a loaf—like the hero of Victor Hugo's 'Les Miserables'—is not to be judged as the respectable promoter of rotten investments, who grows rich on the ruin of thousands of helpless people. The miserable child of the London thief, whose training has been at a school of crime, cannot be justly put into comparison with the son of a happy, prosperous Christian home. There are hereditary tendencies to evil and peculiar circumstances of temptation which beset certain people more than others. The degree of guilt varies accordingly. We cannot weigh all these conditions. Hence the advice, "Judge not, that ye be not judged."

III. ALL SIN TENDS TO AN AGGRAVATION OF ITS ABOMINATION . As Ezekiel went from one chamber to another, he came upon a continually descending series of scenes of wickedness. The worst were last. Sin is never at a standstill. It is a dark and turbid torrent that swells and blackens as it flows. The man who begins with a slight lapse from virtue is on the road to greater abominations. Herein is the danger, the fatal insidiousness of evil. If the sinner saw the whole course of his future from the first and at once—like Hogarth's pictures of the 'Rake's Progress'—he would start back with horror. Yet while he lingers and toys with sin it is silently coiling about him with more and more direful entanglements.

IV. THE EXISTENCE OF VARIOUS DEGREES OF ABOMINATION IS A REASON FOR SPEEDY REPENTANCE .

1 . All sin is abominable. One sin may be a greater abomination than another, but the standard of measurement is not the depth below, but the height above. The question is—How far have we fallen? not—How much further may we yet sink away from the light? A man's sin is not one whit the less because his brother's sin is greater in guilt.

2 . The sooner we repent the easier it is to return. Sin hardens as it becomes more aggravated in evil. While the light of God is waning, the way of recovery is becoming more obscure. "Today is the accepted time."

3 . It is possible for the greatest abomination to be forgiven. The obstacle is only on one side. Christ can save the worst of sinners.